The Knicks Are Only Marginally Better Than Last Year

[Iron Mantis]

I think the Knicks are really really going to miss iHart.

As long as they get another legit Center they should be okay though

What part of Hart's game you think they will miss?

Being a center when Mitch is out for 40 plus games and the playoffs.

[Wildcat]

I think the Knicks are really really going to miss iHart.

As long as they get another legit Center they should be okay though

What part of Hart's game you think they will miss?

Top of the key high post plays. He effectively function as a pseudo stretch 5 because of this court vision and ability to score with that floater.

[thebuzzardman]

Guess the basic rotation. Who is first sub in? 2nd? 3rd

Donte in/ Randle out
Randle/Deuce in/Brunson out
Mitch out/Precious in
OG out/Hart in

Actually, I give up

[Wildcat]

Guess the basic rotation. Who is first sub in? 2nd? 3rd

Donte in/ Randle out
Randle/Deuce in/Brunson out
Mitch out/Precious in
OG out/Hart in

Actually, I give up

Hart almost certainly going to be the 1st one in. Followed by DD and Precious. I think OG will always be the 1st player out. I also don't think Thibs will never have a lineup where both JB and Randle are sitting at the same time (unless someone is playing phenomenal).

[spree2kawhi]

i dont see why we cant run plays through randle and the high post. randle is much much better than ihart on offense.

obviously id rather have ihart than dont have him. but we are overrating this guy by quite a bit.

Because Hartenstein has better vision, is a good, tall screener and won’t dribble into traffic.

It’s a basic basketball play. And in general you don’t want your PF to play second PG. I don’t know why people fail to realize that. Must be that they don’t know the basic basketball plays.

With a player like Brunson aboard, Randle is not a player you want handling/dribbling the ball too much. You’d be wise to ignite plays in high-low, horns or pnr-action, all of which run through a capable hub like Jokic. And if you don’t have a Jokic, a player like Hartenstein.

[St Knick]

My biggest concern with the loss of iHart is whether we still have an advantage in offensive rebounding and if not does Bridges make our initial offense _that_ much better? We had a fairly inefficient offense last season in terms of TS% but had the higher ORB% in the league. This resulted in one of the league's best offenses. Are we still that?

We still have Mitch and Hart but iHart boxing out was a big reason that Hart was able to feast.

So, just spitballing here, but I've wondered how much better the starting offense will be with Bridges vs Donte. And I'm still not sure, other than stuff I listed earlier.

On the other hand, having Bridges to sub in and out changes substitutions.

For instance, I love Hart as a player, but there were some lineups where Hart was out there, and it was like "where's the shooting?"

Now, it might be Bridges/OG/Donte subbing and if Hart's shot isn't there, maybe he doesn't come in. Or does for Randle, but there is still more shooting in the bench lineup than there was last year. Or that was there post OG trade.

And like Dot and others pointed out, better able to withstand OG going out with injury or even Randle, or Donte, at least for limited stretches.

Worry about the center position, but Precious is a good rebounder too. He's not Mitch or iShart in terms of taking up space for others though.

iShart LOL

[spree8]

Don’t matter, it’s still happening….

[Capn'O]

My biggest concern with the loss of iHart is whether we still have an advantage in offensive rebounding and if not does Bridges make our initial offense _that_ much better? We had a fairly inefficient offense last season in terms of TS% but had the higher ORB% in the league. This resulted in one of the league's best offenses. Are we still that?

We still have Mitch and Hart but iHart boxing out was a big reason that Hart was able to feast.

So, just spitballing here, but I've wondered how much better the starting offense will be with Bridges vs Donte. And I'm still not sure, other than stuff I listed earlier.

On the other hand, having Bridges to sub in and out changes substitutions.

For instance, I love Hart as a player, but there were some lineups where Hart was out there, and it was like "where's the shooting?"

Now, it might be Bridges/OG/Donte subbing and if Hart's shot isn't there, maybe he doesn't come in. Or does for Randle, but there is still more shooting in the bench lineup than there was last year. Or that was there post OG trade.

And like Dot and others pointed out, better able to withstand OG going out with injury or even Randle, or Donte, at least for limited stretches.

Worry about the center position, but Precious is a good rebounder too. He's not Mitch or iShart in terms of taking up space for others though.

Support Precious. He could have his breakout season like iHart did last year. Granted, he's undersized against most centers, but if we do end up short-handed at C he could become a real life-saver for us.

Looking at the stats - we should still be pretty good on OREBs with Mitch/Precious/Hart/Randle but we are more reliant on Mitch staying healthy to maintain that advantage unless somebody else steps up. Precious was averaging almost as many as iHart.

[NoStatsGuy]

i dont see why we cant run plays through randle and the high post. randle is much much better than ihart on offense.

obviously id rather have ihart than dont have him. but we are overrating this guy by quite a bit.

Because Hartenstein has better vision, is a good, tall screener and won’t dribble into traffic.

It’s a basic basketball play. And in general you don’t want your PF to play second PG. I don’t know why people fail to realize that. Must be that they don’t know the basic basketball plays.

With a player like Brunson aboard, Randle is not a player you want handling/dribbling the ball too much. You’d be wise to ignite plays in high-low, horns or pnr-action, all of which run through a capable hub like Jokic. And if you don’t have a Jokic, a player like Hartenstein.

i respect your opinion, but i disagree.

[Clyde_Style]

So, just spitballing here, but I've wondered how much better the starting offense will be with Bridges vs Donte. And I'm still not sure, other than stuff I listed earlier.

On the other hand, having Bridges to sub in and out changes substitutions.

For instance, I love Hart as a player, but there were some lineups where Hart was out there, and it was like "where's the shooting?"

Now, it might be Bridges/OG/Donte subbing and if Hart's shot isn't there, maybe he doesn't come in. Or does for Randle, but there is still more shooting in the bench lineup than there was last year. Or that was there post OG trade.

And like Dot and others pointed out, better able to withstand OG going out with injury or even Randle, or Donte, at least for limited stretches.

Worry about the center position, but Precious is a good rebounder too. He's not Mitch or iShart in terms of taking up space for others though.

Support Precious. He could have his breakout season like iHart did last year. Granted, he's undersized against most centers, but if we do end up short-handed at C he could become a real life-saver for us.

Looking at the stats - we should still be pretty good on OREBs with Mitch/Precious/Hart/Randle but we are more reliant on Mitch staying healthy to maintain that advantage unless somebody else steps up. Precious was averaging almost as many as iHart.

True. We should be a good rebounding team overall. We may still get more second chance points than clubs with bigger line ups.

The potential weak link will be defending against skilled offensive bigs in the paint if Mitch is off the floor.

[NoStatsGuy]

I think the Knicks are really really going to miss iHart.

As long as they get another legit Center they should be okay though

What part of Hart's game you think they will miss?

Being a center when Mitch is out for 40 plus games and the playoffs.

ihart looked amazing for sure in that 2nd part of the season and the playoffs. and as i have mentioned before obviously id rather have him, than dont have him. but we on this board are actling like hes the 2nd comming of jokic.

he was benched, shipped and unwanted by his previous teams. he was begging the clippers to resign him for a paycut and "had to go" to NY. his game has been the same since he got drafted besides that little floater he "added".. i believe he always had that, just didnt have the confidence and probably coaches that told him not to "force" it. believe it or not. i have been in the gym with this guy 10 years ago when he was a kid and i think it was just for a visit in germany. he was on the come up and growin into a very good player. unfortunately i cannot prove it because i didnt think that guy would make it to the NBA on my favorite team back then. my point is, he played with confidence and destroyed us, semi pros in the 3rd german league.

people fail to recognize how much confidence, good leadership and team chemistry can do for a player. someone will step up into this role.

//EDIT

oh and i want to add.. i think OKC is a team that fits very well. their chemistry seems to be good and i think he will succeeed over there. im not trying to hate. but how many times have we seen a player break through because they were in the right situation? thats the case with ihart

[NYKat]

What part of Hart's game you think they will miss?

Being a center when Mitch is out for 40 plus games and the playoffs.

ihart looked amazing for sure in that 2nd part of the season and the playoffs. and as i have mentioned before obviously id rather have him, than dont have him. but we on this board are actling like hes the 2nd comming of jokic.

he was benched, shipped and unwanted by his previous teams. he was begging the clippers to resign him for a paycut and "had to go" to NY. his game has been the same since he got drafted besides that little floater he "added".. i believe he always had that, just didnt have the confidence and probably coaches that told him not to "force" it. believe it or not. i have been in the gym with this guy 10 years ago when he was a kid and i think it was just for a visit in germany. he was on the come up and growin into a very good player. unfortunately i cannot prove it because i didnt think that guy would make it to the NBA on my favorite team back then. my point is, he played with confidence and destroyed us, semi pros in the 3rd german league.

people fail to recognize how much confidence, good leadership and team chemistry can do for a player. someone will step up into this role.

//EDIT

oh and i want to add.. i think OKC is a team that fits very well. their chemistry seems to be good and i think he will succeeed over there. im not trying to hate. but how many times have we seen a player break through because they were in the right situation? thats the case with ihart

Agreed, the loss of iHart has become slightly overstated.

Last December, pre-OG trade, before Mitch got hurt, we were really clicking offensively and Mitch was the best offensive rebounder in the league, even more than iHart.

We don’t win the series in Philly without Mitch’s defense on EmBiid those first couple of games. Embiid was DESTROYING iHart, and those minutes that Mitch gave us defending him were crucial to us winning those first couple of games.

I think we’ll feel iHarts absence a little on offense with his playmaking, but Julius and Brunson, can more than make up for that.

IF Mitch is healthy we’ll be fine, but of course we still need to shore up that back up center.

[WargamesX]

I think the best skill IHart had was passing and he only got to do it as much as he did because Randle got injured. With Randle back all those IHart passes go to Randle.

I also think we’re all just assuming Mikal starts but there is an argument he can be the 6th man as well spotting both Dante and OG as needed.

It doesn’t make sense for Randle or OG to play center when they brought Precious back. Mitch/Sims/Precious is 48 minutes at the Center rotation every night.

This team is a contender if they are healthy. A trio of Brunson/Randle/Bridges is exactly what we been asking for. I know people would prefer to have Randle as a third choice but since we got Brunson, outside of Donovan I haven’t seen a player moved who could make Randle a third option and the Donovan fit and cost was terrible. Add to that OG, Hart, DDV, Mitch, and McBride and this team can if healthy bang with any team in the league.

[WargamesX]

i dont see why we cant run plays through randle and the high post. randle is much much better than ihart on offense.

obviously id rather have ihart than dont have him. but we are overrating this guy by quite a bit.

Because Hartenstein has better vision, is a good, tall screener and won’t dribble into traffic.

It’s a basic basketball play. And in general you don’t want your PF to play second PG. I don’t know why people fail to realize that. Must be that they don’t know the basic basketball plays.

With a player like Brunson aboard, Randle is not a player you want handling/dribbling the ball too much. You’d be wise to ignite plays in high-low, horns or pnr-action, all of which run through a capable hub like Jokic. And if you don’t have a Jokic, a player like Hartenstein.

The argument I have for that is in a lot of ways Randle plays like a SF. He plays a lot like Melo minus the post up ability. It’s ok for him to be the secondary ball handler because that lets Brunson play off ball and act as a shooting threat. When Randle went down Brunson had to work harder because while IHart can pass, he can’t create and Brunson needed to collapse defenders to get other guys open.

IHart was a hub pass player but he came here from the clippers with that ability. The Knicks didn’t utilize it often because Brunson and Randle were the primary ball handlers. It would have been amazing to incorporate that now, but it’s not so much we loss passing as we just never reached our potential to do it.

[FrozenEnvelope]

Saying we are just marginally better after adding Mikal makes no sense. Unless you value Hartenstein a lot more.

[RHODEY]

discuss

NB marginal better than our healthy version? Or the skeleton crew that had to play the Pacers?

[BadNewsBarnes]

They have a rotation greater than 8 now...that has to be better...

[nedleeds]

discuss

[Riot Randolph]

People over index iHarts importance…sure he had a nice floater but he set terrible screen didn’t move well off ball and defense was highly suspect in the playoffs

[nedleeds]

People over index Thibs importance ... sure he'll grind our player into paste for regular season glory but he is an atrocious in game coach with a clown world record in the playoffs.